Instructors

Darrell

Native language:: English

Total orders:: 2

Nationality:: Canada

Residence:: Japan

Skills

Business English
Beginner
Advanced
EIKEN
TOEIC
TOEFL

Certifications: BA (Honors) in North American Literature from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada Certificate of Educational Studies in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Intesol International TESOL Training Certificate of Educational Studies in Teaching Business English from TESOL-direct
Announcements: Hi! My name's Darrell, which is very difficult for Japanese people to pronounce. All those r's and l's... It's torture, I know. But don't worry: as an IDIY customer, you don't have to say it. Although from Canada, I live in Japan and have for the last twenty-five years so I know what it's like to struggle with a language you only partially understand. It's like trying to do a puzzle with missing pieces. You have to imagine what's not there. But isn't that part of the fun? To fly by the seat of your pants through situations that, in your own language, are as easy as pie? I'm looking forward to sharing with you the things I have learned in my many years in Japan, about grammar, how to make your English more natural and why Japanese people tend to make the mistakes they do. Things like "go to shopping," for example. The teacher-student relationship is a journey, where each learns from the other. Let's begin ours now.
Hobbies/Travel: Well, that depends on the weather. If it's a beautiful sunny day, then there's nothing I like more than going for a long ride on my bicycle. I have two bikes, a cross bike for shopping in the city and a foldup bike, which I put in a bag and take on the train. I like to go to rural areas and ride around. I've done some longer trips such as Echizenkaigan and Shimanamikaido but these days, I mostly just do daytrips in Hyogo, Shiga or Nara. I also do tai chi. It's a good way to begin the day. In the evening, I like to read, mostly non-fiction, and watch movies. I'm also an ice hockey fan who cheers for the Habs. As for my favourite country... I'm going to cheat and say Canada, largely because of Montreal. I lived there for seven years and had a lot of fun. It's a great city, with the best of both worlds: it's part of Canada but, because of the French culture, feels like Europe. I've travelled a bit: backpacked through Europe after university, three trips to the U.S. (L.A., New York and Nebraska), Israel and, since coming to Japan, some places in Asia, like Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea. These days, since COVID, I travel mostly in Japan.
Message from the instructor: I'm never going to say that you did a bad job. To me, every effort is good, a step, no matter how small, up the ladder of improvement. Do your best but don't worry about making mistakes. It's the best way to learn. Also, feel free to tell me what level of correction you want. Maybe you just want a simple polishing, a wrinkling out of your errors. Or maybe you want something more extensive, a deep clean of your grammar or an extensive rewrite to make it as natural as possible. Whatever the case, I'm up for it. I'm here to help you express yourself, not speak for you. Or, even worse, speak over you. Give me your voice and I will help to make it stronger.

No reviews

Back to instructors

Start here
- About IDIY
- Correction styles
Services
Use cases
Instructors
- All instructors
Pricing
Contact us
- FAQs/Inquiries
- Teach at IDIY

TOEIC(R) and TOEFL(R) are registered trademarks of Educational Testing Service (ETS). This website is not endorsed or approved by ETS.
EIKEN(R) is a registered trademark of the Eiken Foundation of Japan. This website has not been approved, endorsed, or otherwise reviewed by the Eiken Foundation of Japan.
The company names, school names, service names and product names appearing on this website are registered trademarks or trademarks of the respective companies.